Over the past three decades, Gregory Crewdson has been fleshing out a portrait of middle America, that America of picket-fence suburbia gazing wide-eyed at the glimmers of a fading dream which has long since faded and wilted. His cinematographically staged photos have gradually pieced together the fragments of a twilight world. His oeuvre stunningly interweave an autobiographical dimension with the portrait of a gloryless America as the setting for a humanity devoured by muted angst while steeped in despondency and ennui. Wan lights and deserted streets are recurring tropes in his works, which are prepared like movie sets to produce photos that quite astonishingly remain images from nonexistent films.

This exhibition brings together works from the three series created between 2012 and 2022. Envisaged as a trilogy, they offer unique insight into a decade of creation and reveal the two central axes – intimate and political – of the universe that has posited Gregory Crewdson as one of the major figures of photography. Cathedral of the Pines and An Eclipse of Moths mark a pivotal phase due to the intimacy with which they vibrate, crystallized by the images’ locations, which are deeply connected to the lives of Gregory Crewdson, his romantic and creative partner Juliane Hiam, and their children. This trilogy, remarkably concluded by Eveningside, reveals the major articulations of Gregory Crewdson’s art, in a fine oscillation between poetics and politics, between a man’s down-to-earth sensitivity and his piercing grasp of the backwash thudding against a world in the grip of slow brutality.

Following the exhibitions at the Gallerie d’Italia (Turin, Italy, 2022), at Les Rencontres Photographiques d’Arles (Arles, France, 2023), at the VB Photography Centre (Kuopio, Finland, 2024) at the Marubi National Museum of Photography (Shkodër, Albania, 2025), the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi presents the works of this internationally acclaimed photographer.

Jean-Charles Vergne
Curator of the European travelling exhibition Author of the book Gregory Crewdson — Eveningside

Exhibition project in collaboration with Gallerie d’Italia – Intesa Sanpaolo

Gregory Crewdson is born in 1962 in Brooklyn, New York. He lives and works between New York City and Massachusetts. He is a graduate of SUNY Purchase, New York, and the Yale School of Art, New Haven, where he is now a professor and a director of graduate studies in photography. Collections include the Albertina Museum, Vienne ; Louis Vuitton, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France; and National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Exhibitions include Gregory Crewdson: 1985–2005, Kunstverein Hannover, Germany (2005, travelled to Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Germany; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; and Landesgalerie Linz, Austria); In a Lonely Place, C/O Berlin (2011, travelled extensively); Beneath the Roses, Museu da Imagem e do Som, São Paulo (2014); Fireflies, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY (2014); The Becket Pictures, FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France (2017); and Cathedral of the Pines, Photographers’ Gallery, London (2017, travelled to the Centre of Contemporary Art, Toruń, Poland) ; Eveningside, Gallerie d’Italia, Turin, Italy (2022) ; Eveningside, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, La Mécanique Générale, Arles, France (2023) ; VB Photography Center, Kuopio, Finland (2024) ; Marubi Museum, Shkodër, Albania (2024) ; Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria (2024) ; Picture Window, Collection Louis Vuitton, Munich, Germany (2024).

Jean-Charles Vergne (1972) is a curator and a author. He was the director of FRAC Auvergne from 1996 to 2023. He has devoted exhibitions and books to Luc Tuymans, Katharina Grosse, Albert Oehlen, Marina Rheingantz, David Lynch, Raoul de Keyser, Dirk Braeckman, Richard Tuttle, David Claerbout, Claire Chesnier, Miryam Hadd- ad, Agnès Geoffray, Shirley Jaffe, Gert & Uwe Tobias, Ilse D’Hollander, Mireille Blanc, Gilles Aillaud, Bruno Perramant, Dove Allouche, Philippe Cognée, Eberhard Havekost, Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille, Darren Almond, and others.

Since 2022, he has been the curator of the European tour of the Eveningside retrospective dedicated to Greg- ory Crewdson and the author of several books on Gregory Crewdson, including Eveningside, published by Skira. He is the co-author of the catalog Dans le flou accompanying exhibitions at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris (2025), the CaixaFoundation in Madrid (2025-2026), and the CaixaFoundation in Barcelona (2026).

In 2027, he will curate the exhibition La Couleur tombée du ciel (The Colour Out of Space) at the Musée Fabre (Montpellier), featuring 90 artists from the 19th century to the present day (publication of a book).

“After the exhibition stops in France, Finland and Albania, the images by Gregory Crewdson – presented in a world premiere at Gallerie d’Italia in Turin – are now arriving in Belgium, at the prestigious Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi. The exceptional photographs of Eveningside, commissioned by Gallerie d’Italia and now travelling across Europe, highlight the recognition received by our museum in Piazza San Carlo and the Group’s strong commitment to promoting art and culture beyond national borders.”

Michele Coppola
Executive Director Art, Culture and Heritage Intesa Sanpaolo
Director General Gallerie d’Italia